


Futilitarian

by Onesmartcookie78



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Episode: s01e09 The Empty Child, Episode: s01e10 The Doctor Dances, Episode: s04e08 Silence in the Library, Episode: s04e09 Forest of the Dead, Episode: s05e01 The Eleventh Hour, Established Relationship, F/M, Kissing, Non-Consensual Kissing, POV First Person, POV Original Female Character, Philosophy, Pocket Watches, Regeneration (Doctor Who), Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-18 12:26:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28743192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Onesmartcookie78/pseuds/Onesmartcookie78
Summary: The crepuscule of my old life lay before me, I knew, as I stared at myself sleeping peacefully in the only bedroom that would ever be truly mine. I had two choices: strap the ever-so-troublesome malfunctioning Vortex Manipulator to my own wrist, thus validating everything that had occurred within the past few years; or walk away and hope that, by not creating my own future, by not keeping up my own timeline, I would cease to exist in this hellish world, and return to the girl who could sleep in that bed, unaware.Doctor/OC jumping through his timeline fic. Updates sporadically.Join my Discord!
Relationships: Doctor/Original Female Character, Eleventh Doctor/Original Character(s), Eleventh Doctor/Original Female Character(s), Eleventh Doctor/Reader, Ninth Doctor/Original Female Character(s), Ninth Doctor/Reader, Tenth Doctor/Original Character(s), Tenth Doctor/Original Female Character(s), Tenth Doctor/Reader, doctor/reader
Comments: 13
Kudos: 40





	1. crepuscule

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don’t own, nor will I probably ever own, Doctor Who.

* * *

* * *

crepuscule (n.): twilight

* * *

* * *

I wake up when my head slams into the ground. Considering how much I toss and turn at night, I’d been expecting this to happen for some time now, but I’d _never_ fallen out of bed in the past, so it was a _little_ strange.

“Fuuuuck,” I hiss, rubbing at the spot and blearily pushing myself into a standing position. _Wait, what._

This...this was _not_ my bedroom. Nope. Not by any stretch of imagination. Instead, I’m in a circular room with some pretty freaky looking columns supporting the ceiling. It’s a good thing I don’t have trypophobia. The walls had weird, hexagonal portholes on them, and the whole room was bathed in an orange glow, which I traced to the lights hanging from the walls in messes of black cable.

“What the _fuck_?!”

Because, you know what it vaguely, _idiotically_ resembles, with my head throbbing and my brain mush from staying up so late writing my thesis?

It looks like that stupid ship-thing in _Surgeon Who_ , or whatever it’s called—that science-fiction show my friends had forced me to watch last night at my birthday party. I hadn’t been too optimistic going into the whole affair, and as it turned out, I had _not_ liked it. Clearly running on a _very_ low budget with shitty acting and even shittier special effects, _Surgeon Who_ relies on a gibberish dialogue that is meant to sound witty, but, when further examined, doesn’t actually have any logic to it. It’s like _Star Wars_ , but without any of the good parts, and with equally shit character writing, as far as I’m concerned.

And, of course, my friends had insisted that I give the show to at _least the third or fourth episode, Morgan, and you’ll love season two and onwards, we know it, but you can’t skip the first season because then you won’t understand_.

Anyway, what was this thing called? This...ship? The uhhh....

“ _Morgan._ ”

Okay who is _that?_ He’s not the Surgeon. Maybe he’s the actor’s understudy or something? Oh, wait, this isn’t a play or musical. It’s a TV show. If Surgeon guy is sick, they would just take off filming until he got better.

But how had Jaye gotten me here anyway? I mean, it’s one thing for my friends to make me watch this show, but to somehow smuggle me on set while I was sleeping and—

 _Oh,_ but he looked sad. He being the guy. Man, I kinda wanted to know him. He _is_ a little _very_ attractive in a brown pinstripe suit, his hair sticking up at odd angles. And he looks so lonely and longing and _so_ very afraid that I—

“Morgan, it’s going to happen again,” he says quietly, his voice breaking a bit on my name.

How does he know my name? Jaye must have written some sort of script and hired an actor and—

“I can’t control it.”

 _Can’t control what?_ The question floats around in my head, but Grace and Mary would easily have predicted that to be my response, so I settle for a far more neutral but no more knowledgeable: “I’m sorry.”

He nods to himself, features twisting in pain. “I... I don’t _want_ to go.”

 _Go where?_ I almost open my mouth to ask, but before I can say anything, or even formulate a coherent-yet-more-original response, he’s violated my boundaries, stepped in nice and close, intelligent brown eyes glassy, and taken my cheeks into his palms, pressing a desperate kiss to my lips.

I make a noise of surprise and wonder if this is some weird _Doctor Who_ (or is it Surgeon? Maybe Doctor-Surgeon?) kink thing that I’m now supposed to be into, where prostitutes dress up like characters from the show and—

Nah. Even if it _were_ some fetish of theirs, my friends _had_ to know that I would kink shame _the fuck_ out of them for revealing it to me.

He pulls away, and I watch as his features begin to settle into something even more frightened, horror in his eyes, his skin shimmering faintly in... gold?

“Morgan, _go._ Go down the hall to your room and don’t come out. I don’t want you to be—”

I gape at him.

He gasps in pain, and his skin starts to go fluorescent faster than a light bulb. “Morgan, now!”

I gulp, because if this isn’t real life and it’s a dream, I would be fine, but if it _is_ real and not _excellent_ special effects, then what was—I was going to die.

Okay, think later, run down the corridor now. But he’d told me to go to my room and I didn’t have a room!

I had half a mind to turn around and ask where I might find said room, but survival instinct tells me that the sound of metal scraping and an _explosion_ and sparks and a sudden temperature increase of roughly a _million bajillion_ degrees are things that I have to get away from, _right now immediately_. But curiosity _fails_ me, and as soon as I’m ten feet down the hallway, I can’t help but turn my head to look and _holy shit, he’s shooting fire out of his arms and his legs and his head but his clothes aren’t burning, and even_ I _don’t have this active an imagination or the ability to produce such a unique dream and this can’t be smoke and mirrors so maybe_ ohmygod _maybe it_ is _real and what am I going to do, I’ve been kidnapped by a stranger who is dying from something or—and—_

It stops.

The interior of the room is almost completely destroyed: metal walls and floors scorched beyond repair; some of the twisting column-structures (they looked a bit like coral?) had fallen and were making half-decent campfires; and instead of the man who had kissed me, some very pale, floppy haired, younger-looking guy is standing in his place.

_Uhhhh._

Wat.

I take a step towards him, then another, dodging debris, and— _why_? _Why_? I should be running away from him screaming, yet I can’t stop myself from moving forward and—

My feet crunch loudly on broken glass, and I wonder when I’d had the time to put my slippers on, because I certainly hadn’t slept in my slippers and that was a little weird, and—

He spins around suddenly, and when he sees me, he picks me up and whirls me around in circles, his arms tight on my waist. Once he’s sat me down, he kisses me soundly on the lips, and then steps back to run his hands up and down all over himself, shouting out seemingly random body parts as he catalogues, by touch, what he looks like.

“AND WE’RE CRASHING!” he exclaims loudly, with a touch of delighted insanity, and I give him a _look_ just before nearly toppling over as we suddenly lurch to the side.

_What the fucking hell is going on?!_

“Careful,” he says, steadying me before running over to the console at the center of the room until he’s positioned in front of a monitor. He laughs all the while, even as more of the columns crumble down upon us.

I, meanwhile, attempt not to scream bloody murder, especially when I notice that, attached to my left arm, is a very annoying cuff-thing that seemed to have buttons and a—

As if in a trance, my right-hand twitches of its own accord, fingers hovering over the device—

“Don’t touch that now, you’ve only just gotten here, Morgan!” the man calls out between bursts of cackling. He pulls some bulky, cylindrical object with a blue tip out of his pocket and starts waving it around the console wildly, and it _whirs_ and— “We’ve got an adventure on our hands, Morgan! GERONIMO!”

Okay, what is _wrong_ with this guy. First, he replaces that other guy, and now he’s acting completely _fucking deranged_ when we’re probably about to die?!

“ALRIGHT, WHAT THE FUCK IS—?!” I start, but I’m cut off when the (what were we even in? The Doctor’s box thing?) jerks suddenly, throwing shit-for-brains backwards. He hits the door, and he doesn’t stop there. _Oh no_. Instead, he somehow manages to _open the fucking door_ when he’s trying to pick himself up, and he _slides_ and he—

 _Holy fucking_ shit, _he went over the edge! He went over the edge, and he seemed like he knew what was going on, and I am_ so fucking dead _now ohmyfuckinggod._

The console explodes in another shower of sparks and this is so not good and I am _going to die and—_

“YOU FUCKING MORON!” I shout as I run to the door, only to see him grasping the edge of the box, the thingy he’d been waving around earlier clamped between his teeth.

_Mother. Fucker._

I reach out and clasp his wrist to help him back inside, only to hear a rather loud _ding-fucking-dong_ and _sweet Mother Theresa on the hood of a Mercedes-fucking-Benz, that’s fucking Big Ben and—_

And the box’s trajectory is going to have us crashing into its fucking hands, fuck!

“Hm hmm!” he says steadily, letting go of the box with his other hand _and shit I’ve never lifted weights in_ my life, _and I am going to drop him or we are going to plummet to our deaths together and how poetic that he will be the death of me and I just—_

As quickly as he lets go of the edge, he’s snatched the thing in his mouth, pointed it at the console (which promptly explodes _yet again_ ) and I fall backwards, him landing on top of me, both of us panting.

“Hello,” he said, grinning like a _loon_ , like we hadn’t just barely scraped by our deaths by the very tip of a _clock tower_. And he’s still on top of me. _Okay. Get off. Now._ He pecks me quickly on the lips, then leaps up, shutting the door just in time for the box to careen to the side, sending him on top of me again, his elbow in my gut.

“Fuck!” I hiss. At this point, I’m injured, exhausted, confused, irritated, and _pissed the fuck off_ , and _oh_ did I mention, _fucking perplexed as fuck, like this has to be real, I hit my head, I am_ not _dreaming, I can feel pain, this dream is far longer than normal, in fact,_ I don’t usually remember my dreams _, and now here I am, and this_ has _to be real._

“Sorry!” he exclaims, leaping to his feet and pulling me after him. “We need to land, the TARDIS needs some time to recover from the damage I put her through,” he explains, looking over at me. My expression must be wholly unimpressed because he adds, grimacing, “Sorry, Morgan, but it’s—”

“Who _are_ you?!” I shriek.

He winces, presumably at the pitch.

“Who are you, how did I get here, what is this—” I shake my left hand at him menacingly, as though threatening him with my wrist “— _thing_ and what _the fuck_ is happening?!”

His brows are furrowed, teeth clamped down, and a muscle jumps in his cheek. And, you know, he wasn’t half bad looking, but that was _beside the fucking point, answer the fucking questions, asshole!_

He’s saved a response when the console flares up again, sparks shooting every which direction, and then, suddenly, I’m being pitched forward, tackling the man to the ground. His arms come up, securing me to him, and at that _exact moment_ , we go plummeting down the hallway, past an endless number of doors. I tried valiantly not to scream in _what’s-his-face’s_ ear, but when I see that we are heading for a wall—which, upon impact, we would become a conjoined _pancake_ —I can’t exactly help it. Somehow, though, the door opens, and we’re still falling until—

“HOLD YOUR BREATH,” floppy-haired-guy warns me, evidently able to see something I am not, and with that, I draw a deep breath in, and our direction changes again, and we’re falling backwards, or at least backwards for me, and the wind is knocked out of me as I slam into some water with all the force of my mass times gravity and maybe momentum, I don’t know, I fucking majored in philosophy, what _the fuck_ do _I_ know?

My instant reaction, of course, to having the air seized from my lungs is to breathe _in_ , a rather _awful_ decision if one is completely submerged in water, mind you; zero out of ten, would not recommend. And my instant reaction upon inhaling water is to try and expel it and, really, it’s an endless cycle of _fucking drowning and I am going to die and Christ on a cracker, this is_ the end, _but it can’t be and—_

Hands grab me under the arms, and then I’m being hastily dumped on the ground and _the world is really fucking blurry and there is salt in my eyes this was a saltwater pool, are you kidding me, and I_ can’t _breathe, ohmygod–_

He immediately began compressions, and after what feels like a century, I’m coughing out all the water, sitting up and wheezing, and _Jesus, that was close._

And his hands are cupping my cheeks, forcing me to turn to him. “Morgan, are you—”

I nod and knock his hands away. “Fine,” I say hoarsely, looking around. _Anywhere but at him, with those concerned green eyes and that hurt expression._ There are books _everywhere_ , all knocked from their places on the huge bookshelves that stretched all the way to the ceiling, which was at least twenty feet high. _So... this is a library? With a_ pool _in it? That seems like rather poor planning on the architect’s part._ “What’s _happening?”_ I finally manage to rasp, the _S_ rather sibilant.

He swallows and smooths his _ridiculous_ hair back. Somewhere along the way, he’s divested himself of the suit jacket, and all that’s left of his ensemble now is his blue button up, a tie, and a rather tight pair of wet dress pants that I’m not going to complain about. He coughs and loosens the tie further, looking away from me. “Right. Uh, this is going to be a bit, uh, _alarming_ to you but—” he scratches his head, and as quickly as his bright eyes had flicked to mine, they’re once more looking away. “Um, long story, or short story? Short story is good for now or—” he cuts himself off at my death stare. “Right. Long story is good too.”

I fold my arms over the sopping fabric of my tank top, suddenly _very_ keenly aware of the fact that I’m pretty much giving him a free show and a half, and he swallows at the action and _oh, is that why he’s been looking away, oh that is_ precious.

“So long story!” he bursts out, clapping his hands together and staring dutifully in the opposite direction. He bends and picks up a coil of rope from the ground, to which a grappling hook is attached.

_Where did that come from?_

I frown at him.

“We’re going to talk and climb, Morgan.” He’s grinning again, a genuine, maniacal grin that is so tinged with happiness, it’s almost contagious.

“You are _fucking crazy_ ,” I tell him, scowling instead. There’s a loud bang from above us, and a tiny window to the world outside the box appears. The TARDIS has opened its doors.

He just smirks. “Ava Morgan Kingston, if there is one thing you should know about me, it is that I am _absolutely_ crazy!”

And with that _completely reassuring and not at all alarming_ statement, he flings the grappling hook all the way up and through the newly created opening. He gives it a firm tug to make sure it will hold our weight, shooting a smile at me over his shoulder that reeks of _seeking attention and approval_ , and begins to inch his way up the rope. Already, I can see this ending in disaster. The first fifteen feet, I’ll have to climb using solely the rope and my own strength. The rest of the way, I’ll have the floor under my feet, meaning I could theoretically walk vertically and use the rope to keep me upright, but the first fifteen feet...damn.

“Come along, Morgan!” he shouts, looking down, suspended from the rope like some kind of monkey, already fast approaching the hallway, smug expression in place. “If you don’t climb, you won’t get to hear the story!”

 _And,_ oh, _is that cheating, because this rope is a death trap, and we have no idea what it’s attached to, and what if it’s only meant to hold one person at a time, because if it snaps, he’s probably going to have enough luck to fall into the pool, meanwhile I’ll be introducing myself to an early grave following an impromptu meeting with a fucking bookcase. That would be my luck but—_

 _It’s a tempting fucking offer._ “How do you know my name?” I shoot back as I reach up, latching onto the rope with my right hand positioned above my left. I clamp my thighs firmly around the rope, and begin to slowly move upwards, my right hand reaching up and _pulling_ , my legs following, boosting the rest of my body up, and then my left hand reaches up, and _wash, rinse, repeat_.

It’s infinitely harder than it sounds or looks. Especially when one is in poor physical shape, like me. If this was truly _Doctor Who—_ well, I had only seen one episode, but it seems to me like there is a _lot_ of cardio, and I’m not really looking forward to it. I’m _so_ going to be killed by some aliens because I don’t run the treadmill in my free time.

Anyway, my arms are burning, and this is _really_ fucking hard, and _—_

“Because I know you,” he finally answers. He’s just reached the hallway, and he takes the opportunity to glance at me again, a soft smile gracing his mouth. “I met Ava Morgan Kingston for the first time when _—_ well, _spoilers_.”

_Spoilers?_

_But, more importantly,_ “Who the fuck _are_ you?”

He frowns. “I’m the Doctor.”

 _Bull. Fucking. Shit._ “You look nothing like him,” I said flatly, arms straining, knuckles white. “The Doctor is an asshole who calls humans apes and travels with some blonde bitch named Rose.”

Now he’s scowling. “Rose isn’t _that_ bad; I don’t know what you have against her. Not so long ago, I would be very cross at you for saying that, but I understand that you’re confused right now, so I’ll tell you to try and be civil instead,” he warns like a parent lecturing their child. “And I _am_ the Doctor. The man from before was the Doctor. Same man, new face. Is it a good face? I was hoping to be ginger, but it’s just sort of… brown. So hopefully it’s a good face to make up for it. That’s regeneration, by the way, all the fire and—” he starts coughing, and gold comes rushing out of his mouth, like he’s been to a craft store and taken a good swallow of all the glitter they’d had. “All the fire and TARDIS destroying,” he concludes, gesturing with his hands to illustrate “TARDIS destroying” as though that was somehow the most unclear part of what he’d just said.

Finally, I reach the hallway, and from there it’s easier going. All I have to do is fight the urge to let go, hoping that death will get me out of this new, hellish reality of mine.

“ _Right_ ,” I say sarcastically. I’ve nearly reached him at this point. He’s slowed down, and I wonder if it has to do with the gold dust and the _regeneration_ thing he’d said he was going through. “So, assuming you are who you claim to be, why should I believe anything you say? I’ve never seen you before in my life.”

“Oh.” His reply is quiet. “ _Oh._ First time. I thought maybe you’d only seen me in my ninth regeneration, all leather jacket and ears,” he shudders, as though he had been a fashion crime, “but no, this is your first time meeting me at all.”

He sounds...lost? Lonely? Disappointed?

Probably has something to do with the kissing business from earlier, which I’m still fucking annoyed about, to be quite honest. There’s no way _that_ is ever going to happen. Not now, and not ever. I don't know anything about _Doctor Who_ space magic or whatever, but I had seen _Back to the Future_ and I am an avid reader of science fiction, and I could say that, to my knowledge, if I actively ensured that I never became romantic with the Doctor, I could change whatever notions he had in his head about our relationship.

He clears his throat, and I’m close enough now that I can see just how tightly he’s holding the rope, and how stiff he’s become over the topic. “ _Right_.” His voice cracks. He clears his throat _again_. “Right. So, you have a vortex manipulator on your left wrist. It’s broken, completely out of whack, can’t be removed. Sends you everywhere and anywhere in time and space, with one common denominator: _me_.”

“So, I jump uncontrollably throughout your timeline,” I say slowly, skeptically, “and, what, _travel_ with you? Assist you on your adventures?” _Die, inevitably, because I’m far too much of a klutz to make it down the stairs without injury, let alone much further on this rope._

_Just a little bit longer, Morgan._

“Something like that,” the Doctor says wryly, mouth twisting in amusement.

We’re just a few feet from the top now and my arms are spaghetti like mom’s spaghetti. I’d somehow survived, and I’m not dead _quite_ yet, but I have a feeling that I must have done something wrong in life to end up here; _I mean really_ , the least karma could have done is send someone who _knew_ the show and had memorized all the lines.

“Ah, here we are!” the Doctor says, turning to grin at me over his shoulder. I roll my eyes at him as he throws his arms up and over the edge, boosting himself out. As soon as he’s straddling the edge, he holds out his hands for me and helps me out, but he overestimates how much he needs to lean back to have gravity on his side and ends up pulling me on top of him. _Again_.

“Is there something you’re trying to tell me?” I asked dryly, raising a single eyebrow at him in speculation, propping myself up on my elbow to cast a doubtful look at him.

I’m rewarded with a faint blush, his cheeks going ever so slightly pink, and he clears his throat. “Oh, look, a little girl!” he blurts out—and generally that’s quite a bad thing to blurt out, except that this time, there is genuinely a little red-headed girl staring at us in fascinated confusion. He gently pushes me off him and picks himself up, dusting off his raggedy clothing and then offering me a hand.

I ignore his hand and help myself to my feet, refusing to feel guilty about his disappointed expression.

His hand lowers back to his side. “Can I have an apple? That’s all I can think about, apples... Maybe I’m having a craving? That’s new, I’ve never had a craving before.”

_Is he talking to me, the little girl, or himself? Probably all three._

I shoot him A Look. “Do you ever shut up?”

He ignores me and looks back into the box. “Wow, would you look at that?”

I’m half-tempted to push him into the gaping maw before us.

“Are you alright?” asks the little girl who’s been watching us in confusion until she finally decides she isn’t mute.

I shrug. “Well, I can’t say anything about his mental stability, but we’re physically unharmed and I’m probably hallucinating, so that’s something.”

“You’re not hallucinating,” the Doctor informs me, rolling his eyes in annoyance and bumping his arm into mine. I edge away, glaring at him. “And to answer your question,” he points at the Soulless Ginger Ten-Year-Old (is she ten? Does it matter?), “we just had a fall all the way to the library. Hell of a climb back up.”

She pulls a face. “You’re soaking wet.”

“Yeah, I still don’t get it myself,” I mutter.

“We were in the swimming pool,” the Doctor says as though that explains everything.

Her eyebrows, if possible, knit together further. “You said you were in the library…?”

“You can’t use _normal_ person logic,” I say matter-of-factly. “There’s a swimming pool in the library, for some God-forsaken reason. Makes _perfect_ sense if you ask me.”

The Doctor frowns. “Hey, don’t diss the swimming pool in the library! You love the swimming pool in the library!”

“No, I don’t,” I say flatly. “In fact, I hope all your books get damaged in the water one day.”

He opens and closes his mouth a few times—a rather stunning impression of the goldfish I’d tearfully had to flush down the toilet in second grade—but can think of no response.

“Are you the police, then?” Tiny Soulless Ginger Ten-Year-Old questions, seemingly shaking off all of the weirdo beside me’s… werido-ness. She nods to the box-thing while she speaks, and I’m reminded that the moron beside me thought a veneer from the fifties or whenever blends in with his surroundings perfectly.

But it’s like a switch has flipped. Whatever nervous energy has been making him bounce slightly on his feet dissipates, and I’m left with a serious-faced, _worried_ alien. “Why?” he asks. “Did you call the police?” His eyes narrow into emerald chips and he scrutinizes the little girl closely.

 _A crashing and burning spaceship of which, he is the pilot, is a laughing matter, but an unsettled Scottish girl… that gives him pause? All the fear and the adrenaline and the running around...all of that is fun, but the moment a child is involved…? Is_ that _who this man is?_

“Did you come about the crack in my wall?”

_A crack? A normal crack wouldn’t make her call the police. A normal crack would be nothing. This is an unusual crack. Something scary. How? Why?_

The Doctor seems to have reached the same conclusion. He takes a step closer, “What cra—” his voice breaks and he jerks suddenly, falling to the ground in spasms.

I kneel before I even know what I’m doing, placing the back of my hand on his forehead. He’s burning hot to the touch, and when I lean in close enough to get a good look at his eyes, sliding my hand down to his cheek to tilt his face and get a better angle, they’re hazy, pupils dilated. I’ve just started to move my fingers to check his pulse when his hand catches my wrist, stopping me. He blinks, meeting my gaze with the sort of intensity that I’d only ever seen in movies.

“Are you alright, mister?” the little girl demands, breaking the moment.

His thumb brushes the inside of my wrist as he lets me go. My heart skips a beat, and he struggles halfway onto his feet. “No, I’m fine, it’s okay, it’s all perfectly norm—” he’s cut off when some of the golden dust from earlier comes out of his mouth in a long exhale.

For the first time, the little girl actually looks a little afraid, though that’s soon replaced with plain curiosity and weirded-out-ness. “Who _are_ you?” she sensibly asks, staring at his hands, which are glowing faint gold again.

I’m reminded of how they’d exploded a few scant minutes previously, and I nearly take cover until I realize that, before, he’d warned me away when the same thing had begun to happen. Unless this—version? Reincarnation?—of the Doctor is supremely irresponsible, he would have warned me again. And, given the amount of concern he’d displayed for the child already, that disregard would be especially careless.

As I watch, his fingers lengthen a few fractions of an inch. I raise my eyebrow and reach out to touch them. He allows me, and I’m struck by how _warm_ the gold dust is, how comforting, how _normal_. Absentmindedly, I compare the size of our hands.

“I don’t know who I am yet,” he tells the girl slowly. I can feel him watching me instead of her. “I’m still cooking. Does it scare you?” And, although the question is in response to what she’d asked him, it doesn’t seem to be wholly directed to her.

Almost indignantly, offended that he would think her frightened, she replies, “No, it just looks a bit weird.”

“Is she talking about my face? I hope she’s not talking about my face; it would be awful if she were talking about my face. I just got this face, you know? If it were really that bad, I suppose I could use residual regeneration energy and—”

I helpfully slap him, and _goddammit_ are his cheekbones made from marble? When he sputters at me, hand coming up to the quickly forming mark on his face, I shrug, still shaking out my hand. “You were hysterical,” I say matter-of-factly. “Is that no longer a common medical treatment? Forgive me, I’m not a doctor.”

He does a fish impression again, and I have half a mind to start calling him St. Andrew von Fishenstein after my beloved pet. “No, no, no. I was talking about the crack in your wall,” he finally manages, rubbing vigorously as though that would make the wound disappear. And he’s a fucking _liar_. He had _not_ been talking about the crack. “Does it scare you?”

_“Yes.”_

_Oh, dear. Brave little girl is afraid of it and she just met a totally fucking creepy dude who fell out of the sky in a box and came out and started talking to her like a child molester on LSD. Must be a terrifying crack. Hopefully the house is structurally sound and doesn’t collapse on us._

Having gotten over my hitting him and the Gold Dust Problem, the Doctor straightens. He has the gall to look fucking _happy_ at the girl’s fear, because he’s probably reached the same conclusions I had about the danger level required to scare the fearless red head. Given his excitement at being on a crashing ship, I suppose that means he’s a bit of an adrenaline junkie; he’d have to be, for him to spend his whole life doing shit like this.

“Well then, no time to lose. I’m the Doctor: do everything I tell you, don’t ask stupid questions, and don’t wander off,” he recites as though this is an actual list of rules and not just more inane rambling. He spins on his heel… and promptly slams into a tree.

I snort as he leaps to his feet, brushing at the seat of his pants and the wrinkles in his shirt.

The little girl blinks at him, ironically, like he’s insane. “Are you alright?”

“Early days,” the Doctor says with a wave of his hand, “the steering’s a bit off.”

I suppose that makes some sense: if he’s used to walking around with a few extra or a few less inches and pounds, it must be quite different, like what I imagined it to be like if one broke their arm or lost their sight.

“What’s your name then, kid?” I ask as she begins leading the two of us out of her garden and towards the house. I’m impressed and a little concerned about the level of trust she’s showing us. _One hell of a terrifying crack indeed_. And who must her parents or guardians be that she was having random strangers examining it and not them?

Something twists sharply in my stomach at the insinuation.

“Amelia,” she replies, “Amelia Pond.”

“Oh, that’s a brilliant name. Amelia Pond,” the Doctor chimes in from beside me, “like a name in a fairytale.”

As much as I hate to admit it, he’s right—very fairytale indeed. “Well, Amelia, I’m Morgan, and this is the Surgeon,” I say, since apparently it befalls upon me to make introductions.

“Actually, it’s ‘the Doctor,’” the Doctor replies.

I ignore him. “Are we in Scotland, Amelia?”

She slates me with a pout as she opens the door and flips the light switch, dousing the kitchen in harsh white light.

I blink spots from my eyes. “I suppose not, then?”

“No, we had to move to England,” she says, and the chair at the table scrapes along the floor as she drags it out. She practically throws herself into it, sitting the flashlight on the table beside her and crossing her arms. “It’s rubbish,” she adds, as if her disdain weren’t already so highly implied. _Yeesh._

“If it helps, I didn’t want to move to England,” I tell her in a conspiratorial whisper as I sit down across from her. “I’m American. I didn’t want to move, but I had to, and now I’m here.”

Amelia leans forwards, eyes suddenly interested. “You had to move too?” she asks, and there is hope in her voice. “Did you ever move back?”

I look over my shoulder at the Doctor, who’s helped himself to an apple from a basket sat near Amelia’s fridge. He takes a curious bite and almost immediately spits it back out. “No,” I say to Amelia as I watch him frown at the apple hatefully, like it’d just demanded his firstborn. “Sometimes change is for the best, Amelia. It’s hard right now, but you’ll meet new friends.”

When I look back at her, she’s deflated. I hadn’t told her what she wanted to hear, and in all honesty, I don’t know what had caused me to say it. It might be something that, deep down, I believed, but given the suddenness of my situation, I hadn’t come to terms with my fate yet, let alone progressed to the point of embracing it.

In essence? I’m a hypocrite.

The Doctor finally wanders over, brandishing the apple as though the very sight of it offends him. “This is disgusting. What is this?”

Sensing the apple’s impending trip to the trash, I snatch it from him. “An apple. Or did your regeneration delete your knowledge of common human fruits?” I quirk a brow at him and continue eating it right where he’d left off. Things like this don’t bother me, though perhaps I should be concerned about the amount of saliva-sharing I’d recently engaged in with an alien: who knows what diseases I could catch from him.

The Doctor merely observes my new snack like I’m eating literal trash. “Apple’s rubbish, I hate apples.”

Picky fucking child.

Amelia is less amusedly annoyed and more dumbfounded. “You said you loved apples?”

He frowns. “No, no, no,” he insists, “I like yogurt. Yogurt is my favorite. Give me yogurt.”

A quick trip to the fridge later, and we discover that, evidently, yogurt is not his favorite either. He tries to get Amelia to fry him something (“because she’s Scottish”) but even with the supervision of a qualified adult (and I certainly don’t mean him) I don’t trust a child with a stove, so I end up being the one to cook him a single slice of bacon and, when he deems that disgusting, warm him up some baked beans. After that, we use the toaster to make him some bread and butter, the taste of which offends him so greatly, he tries to chuck the whole thing down the street, plate and all. I try to talk him down from it with a simple “no, you could hurt someone,” and then a firmer, “plates are expensive, don’t do it,” but, ultimately, the only thing powerful enough to stop him from frisbeeing it into the neighbor’s yard is my glare, which effectively puts an end to his dramatics—though Amelia’s mere suggestion of carrots just seconds later is enough to send him into a fit.

 _Extremely_ picky fucking child.

Eventually the Doctor says that he knows what he needs, and he bakes himself some fish sticks. I make a face at the choice, but I have no idea what I’m in for, because what he pulls out next is truly disgusting: custard. I don’t mind custard on its own, that’s not the problem—the problem is that he’s _dipping the fish sticks into it._

Grimacing, I attempt to ignore the man beside me’s new (and revolting) food revelation. “Are your parents in, Amelia?” I ask conversationally instead.

She looks up from her ice cream, vaguely startled.

The Doctor catches on with a frown. “You’re right, Morgan. I thought we would have woken them up by now.”

Her lack of reply means something though.

“They’re not around, are they?” I ask, tone dripping with sincere sympathy. “Who do you live with? Where are they?”

“My aunt,” Amelia finally says defensively. “She’s out.”

My eyebrows shoot up in surprise and a rush of anger and protectiveness goes through me. The Doctor seems to notice, and his hand is suddenly covering my fist, gently prying my nails from my palm before settling his fingers between mine so that they are interlaced. The action is so absentminded and comforting that my head aches. _This is my future, huh?_

“No mum and dad, just an aunt, you say?” the Doctor interjects, inserting some much-needed levity. “I don’t even have an aunt.”

As if it were a fucking competition.

“Lucky,” Amelia says glumly.

I squeeze the Doctor’s hand so hard I’m afraid I might have broken something. Suddenly, a wave of concern and comfort wash over me, and my attention jumps to the man sitting beside me. I frown at him.

 _What the_ — _?_

“I know,” the Doctor replies, as though having an aunt in general is a hellish experience. “So, she went out and left you all alone?”

Amelia’s chin juts out at the insinuation. “Yeah, but I’m not scared.”

The Doctor nods as though this makes perfect sense. “Of course not. Box falls out of the sky, man falls out of the box, man eats fish custard, and look at you, you’re just sitting there. So, you know what I think?”

Amelia leans in subconsciously. “What?”

The Doctor and I exchange a look. “Must be one hell of a scary crack in your wall,” I finally say.


	2. tourbillon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Morgan uses the vortex manipulator to gtfo with unexpected consequences

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So ya girl officially got accepted into some grad schools! I have a few options and I'm really excited! (Plus the director of one of the programs and I talked today and he was kinda hot ngl so that's something)

* * *

* * *

tourbillon (n.): “whirlwind”; a watch component which increases accuracy

* * *

* * *

We follow Amelia into her room. Under normal circumstances, I’d be concerned about two adults, one of whom (and, despite recent developments to the contrary, I don’t mean me), is clearly off their rocker, being alone in a room with a little girl who isn’t even marginally familiar with them. Talk about a case for Child Services. But that worry dissipates cleanly the moment I see the glowing crack bisecting the wall next to Amelia’s bed. A shiver traces its way down my spine at the sight; there’s something _wrong_ , something _very deeply wrong_ going on here.

The crack arcs like a lightning bolt, bright white light shining out of it. It’s roughly three or four feet in length and it _terrifies me._

The Doctor whistles, low and slow. “You’ve had some cowboys in here,” he says as he examines it. Then, he amends, “Not actual cowboys, though that can happen.”

I have the urge to giggle; hysterical giggles that I’m here, that this is happening, that something straight out of a science fiction show is taking place right before my eyes. This is _crazy. I’m_ crazy. Instead, I roll my eyes at him. “Cowboys?” I ask in a drawl when I’ve managed to get a hold of myself. “Talk about catering to your audience. Did you come up with that just because I’m American?”

Amelia doesn’t seem bogged down by the semantics of his metaphor. As I look at her, I realize she’s holding another apple. She hands it to the Doctor for our perusal, and I see that it has a smiley face carved into it. When she’d had the time to do this, I have no idea, but the Doctor simply takes it from her, unconcerned that a small child had evidently been using a knife unsupervised.

“I’ll save it for later,” he says, pocketing it. “So, here’s the thing about this crack.” He takes out the cylindrical object from earlier. It whirrs as he points it at the jagged mark which spans the length of the bed. “The wall is solid, so where’s the draught coming from?” The Doctor examines the thing in his hand (is he checking for some sort of reading?) and hums to himself. “Wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey,” he says nonsensically. I must make a face, for he hastily continues, “You know what this crack is? It’s a crack. But I’ll tell you something funny: if you knocked down this wall, the crack would stay put, because the crack isn’t _in_ the wall.”

It’s Amelia’s turn to make a face. “Where is it, then?”

But my mind is racing. “Wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey,” I repeat, eyes wide. “It’s a crack in time itself?”

The Doctor points at me in utter elation. “Exactly, Morgan, you absolutely brilliant girl!” he exclaims, wrapping an arm tightly about my shoulders before kissing me fiercely atop the head. I shove him away, but he continues, unbothered, “It’s a split in the skin of the world. Two parts of space and time that never should have touched, pressed together right here in the wall of your bedroom.”

And, boy, does he sound excited about it. I have half a mind to smack him again, because if that’s the case, if there’s a crack in time and space _itself_ , isn’t Amelia in _danger?_

_Fuck. I don’t have the mental capacity to deal with this bullshit right now._

“Do you ever hear anything?” the Doctor asks Amelia.

She nods. “Yeah. A voice.”

The Doctor’s eyes narrow and, all the sudden, there’s a low rumbling sound. The Doctor reaches for the glass of water at Amelia’s bedside and promptly dumps its contents onto the floor.

“Doctor!” I hiss, staring at the mess. I start to ask Amelia where I can find a towel to clean it up (at least one of us has to be a responsible adult) but the Doctor pays me no mind.

“Clean up later, this is important,” he says. He fits the glass against the crack and, after a moment, his brows furrow. “Prisoner Zero?” he asks.

_Prisoner? I don’t like the sound of that._

“Prisoner Zero has escaped, that’s what I heard!” Amelia exclaims. “What does it mean?”

I can hazard a guess. “On the other side of the wall, there’s a prison,” I say, a shiver raking its way down my spine. I don’t like this at all. “And they lost a prisoner.”

I’m struck, all at once, with how _dangerous_ this all is. A crack in space and time itself? An interdimensional prisoner on the loose? I need to get out of here. I need to find a way back home, and fast. It may have seemed like a dream at first, but things are getting too real: I’d been injured, I’d been kissed, and I’d remembered everything. Who remembers the entirety of their dream? Who can feel pain while they’re asleep? This was getting all too real. And then, I remember the thing strapped to my left wrist. I chance a glance at it—what had the Doctor called it? A gortec manicure? Something like that, at any rate. Maybe I can—

“You know what that means?” the Doctor asks rhetorically.

I hold my left hand up until it’s at eye level. There are a few different buttons, none of which are labeled. The one that stands out the most is larger than the others by a few fractions of an inch. It’s the only button positioned to the very right of the blank screen, and something tells me that it’s the only button that actually functions on this thing.

“Morgan, don’t—”

My world explodes in pain as I disappear.

* * *

“—an.”

_Five more minutes, mom._

“—organ!”

I blink, but my world is off kilter, like I’ve just taken six shots in a row and tried to stand. Everything is blurry and hazy and when I close my eyes again, it feels like I’m at sea, the boat rocking in roiling water. And I’m nauseous. So very nauseous.

“MORGAN!”

I lurch to the side and promptly empty the contents of my stomach. A hand pulls my long hair away from my face as I continue to retch.

“Is she okay?” comes another voice, female this time.

I press my hands into my eyes. Everything is too bright, the world is still spinning, and there’s a dull ache forming behind my nose and eyes.

“She must have hit the button. Probably just came out of a dangerous situation,” says the other voice, male, much closer to me. I _recognize_ that voice.

 _“This_ is a dangerous situation!” the girl says. “Morgan! Morgan!”

I groan. It feels like my head is about to split open.

“Well, yelling at her isn’t going to fix anything,” the Doctor says matter-of-factly, but it’s not the voice of the floppy-haired man from earlier, nor the man in the pinstripe suit. It’s the voice of the Doctor from last night, the same voice I’d heard filtered through the TV screen, with Jaye, Mary, and Grace sat beside me. His accent is distinctly Northern, but rather than being charming, it instead makes my head hurt even _more._

“Mummy? Please, mummy? Mummy?”

There’s a child here, too?

I blink harshly, still feeling like I’ve been hit by all the king’s horses and men—and their wives and children as well.

It strikes me, as I try to take in my surroundings, that it hadn’t _worked._ I’m still in the _Doctor Who_ -universe (the _Who-_ niverse? Is that what the kids call it?) and if the panic in the girl’s voice is anything to go by, then this situation is even _more_ dangerous than Prisoner Zero. Just my luck.

“Doctor, we kinda need you to focus,” says another male voice.

I turn my gaze towards the sound and, despite my bleary, distorted vision, can see a blob of bright blonde hair next to a taller head of dark hair, shorn short. It’s the girl the Doctor travels with in the first season. Posey, right? Some sort of flower name, at any rate. I don’t know, it’s hard to think right now.

“Mummy?”

The Doctor snaps to attention, hoisting me to my feet. I wobble with all the uncertainty of a newborn foal, and in return he hauls me against his side, arm firm around my waist. I groan at the sudden movement, feeling the world tilting on its axis again, and then I’m leaning against something soft, smooth, and cold. I inhale deeply in an attempt to quell the panic quickly taking root inside me. I can practically taste leather and warmth and a hint of orange. He smells like mulling spices.

I remember many a Christmas with my mom spent over the stove, whisking away a mixture of cinnamon sticks and anise and red wine and orange juice until it was burn-your-tongue-off hot. She’d let me have the littlest sip from her mug as a child, and then one of my own when I had turned sixteen.

My mom.

_Christ, I miss her, and it hasn’t even been a day._

“I’m here. Can’t you see me?”

The arm around me stiffens, as if he’s been reminded that we are, in fact, in danger. “Morgan,” he says directly into my ear, voice low and tinged with gruff concern. “Need you up and at ‘em.”

“Doctor, what’s that noise?”

“Morgan,” his voice is sterner now. He jostles me in his arms roughly, on purpose this time, and I hiss as pain lances through my head, traveling down my wrist, or up from my wrist to my head? I’m not sure anymore.

“Doctor?”

“Tape ran out thirty seconds ago,” he grunts, voice a rumble in his chest. “Morgan, if you can’t get up, I’m going to have to do something you’re _really_ not going to like.”

“I’m here now! Can’t you see me?”

“Doctor, what’s wrong?”

“This is its room. I sent it to its room.” He shakes me again, more urgently this time, but my eyes are rolling back into my head, the weakness in my limbs even more pronounced as I give into it. Futile. Everything here is futile. “MORGAN!” he shouts.

I try to reply, try to tell him to leave me here, try to insist that my death means nothing in the grand scheme of the universe, for we are but tiny specks alighting this transient planet, ephemerally doomed to lead a life of insignificance. But all that comes out is “Hnng.”

He sighs softly. Sadly. “I know. I’m sorry.” He cradles my left arm gently. “But you left me with no choice.”

And with that, I feel him push the button again.

* * *

I wake up some unspecified amount of time later to a piercing pain twisting in my gut. It feels like my insides have found their way outside my body and the ache in my head has tripled in intensity. Even the slightest shift of my body causes me to twitch in agony.

_Jesus fucking Christ. Talk about having some cowboys in here._

Distantly, I hear laughter. It sounds so very far away, like I’m underwater. I suck in a harsh breath, feeling my lungs protest in response. The laughter fades into sharp footsteps lacking any sort of refinement as they rush towards me.

_Am I dying?_

“Morgan!” a voice calls, sounding panicked. It’s a familiar voice, one that I’ve heard before but can’t quite place. “Morgan, can you hear me?”

A finger prods at the pulse in my neck and my body spasms in response.

_Ow. Fuck._

I moan, distressed.

“Oi, spaceman, stop crowding her!” comes another voice, higher in pitch. “Morgan,” the woman says, “how many fingers am I holding up?”

I try to open my eyes, but even the dim lighting is blinding. “Fuck,” I manage to spit out.

The woman laughs. “I think she’ll be alright.”

A hand gently brushes my hair from my face. “Let’s get you to the Med-Bay,” says the man—the _Doctor._

And, as soon as he reaches for me, lifting me up in his arms, I pass out.

* * *

Awareness comes and goes.

I’m vaguely cognizant of my surroundings. There’s harsh white light, white walls and flooring. Am I in a hospital? Am I dying?

“—be okay—”

I blink hazily, but my vision refuses to focus.

I fall back asleep.

* * *

“—up soon?”

I groan.

“Morgan!”

Arms are thrown around me and I almost suffocate on a face full of breasts. I blink slowly and things are clear for once. A red-headed woman is clinging to me tightly. When she pulls back, I’m met with the visage of a kind-looking woman, her eyes concerned.

“See, I told you she’d be alright!” the woman exclaims.

A man in a blue suit, hair sticking up in all directions—the Doctor—chuckles. “You did,” he says. He takes a step towards me, then another, all hesitation. “I remember this outfit,” he says quietly. “I’m sorry.”

And with that, he embraces me.

I want to sink into it, want to accept the comfort, want to be close to someone because _I almost just died and I miss my mom and I miss when things were_ normal, _but something tells me they’ll never be normal again_ , but instead I shove him away. “Who are you?” I address the red-haired woman.

Her smile falters, disappointment clear. “Donna?”

“Is that a question?” I ask.

They both ignore my sass.

“Wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey,” the Doctor says. “This must be her first time meeting you.”

I don’t bother confirming as much. After all, it must be pretty obvious from the way I’m staring at her. “Where am I?” I finally settle on.

“Med-Bay in the TARDIS,” the Doctor replies. “You must have used the vortex manipulator too much.” He gestures to the device strapped to my wrist.

I hold it up to eye-level, examining it once more. There are several buttons to the left of the blank screen, though something tells me that none of them are functional. To the right is a slightly larger button, slightly discolored and worn as though it’s been pressed frequently. But that’s not what disturbs me about device; no, what disturbs me is that it appears to be _fused to my skin_.

“What the fuck?” I shout, shaking out my hand as though that will magically make the thing disappear, or else detach it from my limb.

The Doctor winces. “You must be young,” he says, and I feel something brush against my head, and a wave of comfort washes over me. At first, I think he must have run his fingers through my hair, like my mom used to do when I was upset, but when I finally look up, both of his hands are at his sides.

_What the—?_

“Sorry, habit,” he says apologetically, noticing my alarmed expression.

Donna coughs. “So, this is your first time seeing me?” she interjects. “Well, I’m Donna Noble.” She gestures over to the Doctor. “And this oaf is the Doctor.” The Doctor makes to object, likely to being called an oaf, but Donna bulldozes along, “And I’m your best friend.”

Considering how sarcastic she’s been within the first five minutes of me meeting her, I don’t doubt that claim. “I know who he is,” I say, propping myself up on the pillows behind me. “What I don’t know is what the hell is going on.”

The Doctor launches into an explanation in which he says “wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey” no less than five times, and it’s all I can do to follow along. It’s just like the other Doctor told me; this thing on my wrist—a vortex manipulator—is malfunctioning and causes me to jump throughout his timeline, meaning we’re constantly crossing nonlinear paths. I have so many questions that I can’t settle on just one; my mind is positively racing and all that comes out is: “Huh?”

The Doctor makes to reply, but just as he’s opening his mouth, he frowns. He digs around in his pockets for a few moments until he produces a piece of paper. I can just make out some words scrawled across the page, but they don’t register. He clears his throat. “I know it’s a lot to take in,” he says gently, “but we have to go now. Why don’t you go get dressed?”

“With what clothes?” I ask incredulously.

The Doctor just smiles.

* * *

Donna ends up taking me to my room. Written in my own handwriting is “Ava Morgan” and, underneath that, a series of circles. I reach for them, tracing my fingers over the symbols and wondering what they mean. Maybe it’s my name in an alien language? I’m not sure.

“Here you are,” says Donna. “Do you want me to wait?”

I shake my head. “No,” I say, “it’s just a hallway, it can’t be that difficult to find my way to the console room, right?”

Donna laughs. And keeps laughing. And laughing.

“What?” I ask.

She continues to laugh. “Right,” she says, wiping away an imaginary tear. “I’ll see you in a few, yeah?”

And with that, she walks away. I watch her retreating figure for a few moments before entering “my” room. I say “my” because it feels wrong. The only room that’s ever truly belonged to me is in my mom’s apartment in London, and that’s the way it’ll always be. Except, when I enter, it’s an exact replica, down to the hole in the ceiling where I’d accidentally banged a chair into the drywall and the bits of tape stuck on the wall from my boyband phase. The similarity is eerie, and I resolve immediately to hate this room with all my undying passion.

In fact, the only difference between this room and my real room is that, where there should be a dresser, there’s a door instead. I enter the room fully, closing the door behind me, and make for the other door. When I open it, it’s to find a massive walk-in closet that might as well be another dimension in and of itself. It’s full to the brim with clothing, from period dresses to 2020 Tik-Tok-girl fashion, to more avant-garde pieces that I imagine people would wear on different planets… or in the future…or in the future on different planets.

I’m not sure what to make of this. I’ve never been concerned about my appearance—well, that’s a lie. I love to do makeup for fun. But clothes? Let’s just say, I’ve never been the most fashionable. After browsing for a few minutes, I determine that, if I want to be smart, I should wear pants and sneakers. I decide on a plain gray V-neck, some black joggers, and sneakers with better arch support than any I’ve ever owned previously. In case it’s cold, I grab a zip-up hoodie.

I strip myself of my pajamas and slippers, only to hear a dull, metallic _thump_ as I drop my pants, though how I’d managed to miss the weight of it in my pocket is beyond me.

_Is it my cellphone? First the slippers and now this?_

I definitely hadn’t fallen asleep with it in my pocket.

I hastily reach for the article of clothing and dig through the right and then the left pocket until I find something round.

_What the—_

My fingers hover over the button that I know will open the device, and yet something tells me that its broken, the same way I know that the only button that works on the vortex manipulator is the one on the right.

_Still…_

I turn the thing over in my hands. It’s warm to the touch, practically radiating heat. Well, it _was_ in my pocket, after all. I rub my thumb over the care-worn front of it, almost as if I’ve done this a thousand times. If I look closely enough, there are faint, circular etchings carved into it. My finger hovers over the button as something deep inside me aches. As if in a trance, I run over the etchings once more. And then, I blink, and the spell is broken.

“Fucking piece of garbage,” I mutter to myself, and chuck the offending object into the trash bin beside my bed.

* * *

“So, where are we going?” Donna is asking the Doctor when I walk into the console room almost an hour later.

Despite my confidence in my ability to find the room all by myself, the corridors had been confusing. No matter which door I had opened, no matter how many hallways I had turned down and rooms I’d passed, I’d somehow kept opening the same unmarked door. Inside the room was a bed that looked like it was seldom used, and a desk piled high with various doodads, including what looked to be a disassembled blender and a coil of copper wire. Curiously, there was a second desk to the left of the bed, this one stacked with books. I couldn’t make out any of the titles from my position by the door, and I was loath to intrude upon the space, so every time I happened upon this room, I promptly closed the door, growing more and more irritated.

After my fifth time finding the room, I had grown so frustrated that I felt like crying. It had been a long fucking day and if Donna hadn’t been expecting me to make an appearance in the console room, I would have curled up in bed and tried to sleep away this nightmare. I’d just resolved myself to searching for my room again, stricken with self-pity and loathing, when I’d gotten the urge to turn right down the hall. And, lo and behold, there was the console room.

“Change of plans,” the Doctor says presently, sounding relaxed, but there’s a sort of tension in the air, and especially in the way he’s holding his shoulders. Instead of elaborating, he throws a switch. There’s a strange noise and then I’m thrown to the ground as the whole room shakes. As soon as it had started, it’s over. “The Library!” the Doctor says, opening the door. “So big it doesn’t need a name. Just a great big _The._ ”

Donna steps out first. “It’s like a city!” she says in amazement.

I exit next, unable to pass up the temptation a massive library provides. God, I’m a fucking nerd. I stare around myself in amazement. It’s not like a city at all, it’s more like— “A planet,” I breathe. “It’s an entire planet isn’t it?”

The Doctor beams, and some of the rigidity leaves his shoulders. “Right you are, Morgan. The whole core of the planet is the index computer. Biggest hard drive ever. We’re near the equator, so this must be biographies. I love biographies.”

Donna snorts. “Yeah, very you. Always a death at the end.”

The Doctor shrugs. “You need a good death. Without death, there’d only be comedies.”

He has a point. “‘For without pain, there can be no pleasure. Without sadness, there can be no happiness. Without misery, there can be no beauty. And without these, life is endless, hopeless, doomed, and damned,’” I quote.

The Doctor turns to me in surprise that softens to affection. “Harlan Ellison,” he attributes quietly.

Donna snorts again. “And you said she was young.”

I make a face. “What does that even mean?”

The Doctor ignores my question in favor of swatting the book out of Donna’s hand. “Whoa, spoilers!”

“What?” Donna and I exclaim at the same time, Donna in reply to the Doctor and me in indignation at his treatment of the book.

I quickly pick it off the floor, running a hand over the cover. “He didn’t hurt you, did he, bb?”

The Doctor plucks the book neatly from my hands. “These books are from your future. You don’t want to read ahead and spoil all the surprises. It’d be like peeking at the end.”

I shrug. “I have no patience; I do that all the time.”

He looks offended. “Morgan!”

I shrug again. “It’s a character flaw in my otherwise flawless character, what can I say?”

He rolls his eyes. “At any rate,” he says, “I try and keep you away from major plot developments. Which, to be honest, I seem to be very bad at, because you know what? This is—”

“Where is everyone?” I interrupt with a frown. “I would have thought we would’ve bumped into someone at this point.”

The Doctor points at me. “Yes, precisely, Morgan. It’s completely silent.”

“It’s a library,” Donna deadpans.

“The _planet_ ,” the Doctor elaborates. “The _whole planet.”_

“Maybe it’s a Sunday?” Donna offers, as if that makes a world of difference.

The Doctor and I exchange a look and then stare at Donna.

“What?” she asks. “I hate it when you two do this, look at me like I’ve asked the dumbest question in existence.” She sighs. “Fine. Tell me why I’m stupid.”

“You’re not stupid,” I reassure her.

The Doctor, meanwhile, isn’t concerned with such niceties. Instead, he stalks over to the monitor near us, typing frantically at it for a few minutes. I wonder how he knows what to type, how he knows what to look for. “See,” he says, turning to look at us over his shoulder, “I did a scan looking for basic humanoids and, apart from us, I get nothing. Zippo. Nada. See?” He gestures to the screen for our perusal. “Nobody home,” he continues. “But if I widen the parameters to _any_ kind of life—” He takes a step back and shows us the screen again. “A million, million. Caps at maximum record, gives up after that.” He pauses, staring at the screen himself. “A million, million,” he repeats.

“But there’s nothing here. There’s no _one_ here.” Donna says quizzically. “There’s just books. I mean, it’s not the books, is it?”

My eyebrows shoot up in disbelief. “It’s definitely not the books,” I say. Donna raises a brow in question. “It just can’t be!” I defend myself.

The Doctor pays us no mind. “A million, million life forms and not a sound,” says the Doctor, warm brown eyes meeting my gaze. I feel a strong wave of discomfort, almost palpable in its intensity, wash over the three of us as he concludes, “A million, million life forms… and silence in the library.”


	3. elysium

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The finale of forest of the dead!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to post this because my friend started reading this fic and asked for more, hahaha. Enjoy this chapter, it's very angsty. Also, hi Lynn :)

* * *

* * *

elysium (n.): the abode of the blessed after death

* * *

* * *

The first message is terrifying, but it’s the second that haunts me.

“—if you want to live, count the shadows.”

“Donna, Morgan?” the Doctor says more than asks. “Stay out of the shadows.”

_Count the shadows? Stay out of the shadows? I should have stayed with Prisoner Zero._

“Why, what’s in the shadows?” Donna asks.

The Doctor ignores her. “I got a message on the psychic paper,” he says in reply, holding up the object in question. A message? When had he received that? It must have happened earlier, when I was in the Med-Bay and he took that wallet out of his pocket.

**The Library, come as soon as you can. x**

“Cry for help? With a kiss?” Donna asks in slight disbelief, peering at the piece of paper speculatively. She snorts but looks at me in consideration. “And it wasn’t from you, innit?”

I scoff. “I was _with_ you two when he was sent it. I was barely conscious!”

Donna just looks at me.

I roll my eyes. _“And,”_ I add defensively, “do I really look like I would sign it with a kiss?”

“Not yet, maybe,” Donna muttered.

“I heard that!”

“At first I thought it was from Morgan,” the Doctor says, half to placate Donna, half because he had, in fact, thought that I had been the one to send it.

“With a kiss?” Donna repeats, deadpan.

The Doctor scoffs. “We’ve all done that,” he dismisses with a wave of the so-called “psychic paper”, folding the wallet back up and tucking it into the depths of his pocket.

 _Have we?_ I think to myself.

“Well. Then, who’s it from?” asks Donna.

“No idea,” the Doctor replies cheerily, though I can tell the question is weighing on him.

“So why did we come here? Why did you—”

The Doctor, however, is focused on something over both of our shoulders. “Donna, Morgan?”

“What’s happening?” I hear Donna ask, but I’m already running, my soles quiet on the floor. I don’t need to look to know that something bad is happening, because something bad _always_ seems to be happening around the Doctor. I slam my body against the door to my right to no avail.

The Doctor moves me aside with an arm around my waist and points that cylindrical object at the door. The end of it lights up as the device whirrs, and yet, nothing happens. “Come on,” the Doctor hisses.

“What’s wrong, is it locked?” asks Donna.

“Jammed. The wood’s warped,” the Doctor replies. “I can vibrate the molecules, fry the bindings, shatterline the interface—”

“Out of the way,” Donna says, unceremoniously shoving the two of us to the side. That done, she swings her leg back before throwing it forward once, twice—

My eyes widen as I finally realize that the lights have been going out. The darkness is almost upon us now, _stay out of the shadows_ , and I clutch at the Doctor’s coat almost without realizing I’m doing so.

Donna brings her leg back for a third time and something _gives._ Her momentum carrying her forward, Donna nearly falls to her knees inside the room. The Doctor and I skirt around her and he quickly slams the door shut behind us, plucking a book off the shelf and using it to bar the handles so that no one can enter behind us.

Feeling no more secure than before, I turn around, only to see a small metal ball floating in the air about five feet in front of us.

“Oh, hello,” the Doctor says gently to it, as though it might be alive. Maybe it is. I wouldn’t know. I furrow my brow, wondering what the hell it is. “Sorry to burst in on you like this. Okay if we stop here for a bit?”

In response, the ball falls to the ground with a metallic _tink._

“What is that?” I ask, taking a few steps forward towards where the Doctor is crouched down examining the object and kneeling beside him.

“Security camera,” he replies, as though this is what every security camera looks like. Maybe in the future, it is. “Switched itself off though.” He pulls back out the object from earlier and points it at the ball. “Nice door skills, by the way, Donna,” he compliments.

“Yeah, well, you know,” she says, shrugging it off. “Boyfriends.” No. No, I certainly don’t know. “Sometimes you need the element of surprise,” she continues.

I shoot her a weird look. “After this, we’re going to need to have a chat,” I say, then crack my knuckles. “And perhaps with those ‘boyfriends’ as well.”

She laughs shortly, before remembering the gravity of the situation. “So, are we safe here?”

“Of course we’re safe. There’s a little shop,” the Doctor answers, as if that makes all the difference. Donna and I share a look. I roll my eyes. “There we go! Gotcha!” he exclaims, holding up the ball for our perusal. There’s now very clearly a camera facing our direction. Self-consciously, I run a hand through my messy hair; I hadn’t thought to take a shower when I had the chance, and I still smelled like salt-water from my fall into the library-pool earlier.

 ** _No, stop it. No. No._** The words scroll across the screen positioned above the camera.

“Ooo, I’m sorry,” the Doctor says hastily, patting at the ball gently. “It’s alive,” he says to Donna and I. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

“But you said it was a security camera,” Donna says in confusion.

“That doesn’t preclude it from being alive,” I point out hesitantly. “You thought the books might be alive earlier. Why not the security camera?”

Donna opens and closes her mouth for a few seconds but seems to accept the answer.

 ** _Others are coming,_** the screen reads, **_The Library is breached. Others are coming._**

Donna goes over to another one of those weird head statues, a node, the Doctor had called it, and starts asking it questions. The Doctor remains fixated on the ball for a few moments before standing. I follow him to my feet and start to make my way over to Donna, but he catches my wrist.

“Morgan,” he says, and his expression is the most serious I’ve ever seen, perhaps on par with…on par with when I’d seen him _die—no, that’s not the terminology. What did he call it? Regeneration?_ “I’m not going to lie to you,” he says quietly. “This is a very dangerous situation. If it ever gets too dangerous, I want you to hit that button,” he says, tapping at the right side of the vortex manipulator to indicate which of the many buttons he means.

“Why, what’s going—”

He drops my wrist and darts forward over to Donna, grabbing at her waist. “No, no wait!”

“Oi! Hands!” she exclaims, elbowing at him.

He ignores her attempts to break free and I realize what he’s so worried about: before, where there had been nothing, is a large, triangular shadow.

“Doctor—?” I start.

_There’s nothing that can be casting that._

A shiver wracks my body.

“Oh, I’m thick!” he says, practically bouncing on his toes as he smacks at his forehead like an insane person. “Look at me, I’m old and thick. Head’s too full of stuff. I need a bigger head!” Considering how much self-praise I’ve heard him throw around, I don’t necessarily think that’s true. Maybe more like a reprioritization?

“The shadow,” Donna points out, “it’s gone!”

_Gone? A shadow can’t just vanish, a shadow can’t disappear. That shadow, that shadow must have—_

I’m snapped from my thoughts by the Doctor hurriedly trying to shepherd us back over to where we left the TARDIS. “We need to go. Now,” the Doctor says. “The shadow hasn’t gone, it’s _moved.”_

Another shiver.

And then a door is crumbling down behind us.

I spin on my heel, startled, and yelp.

“Hello, sweetie,” comes the voice of another woman, the one leading the pack. Even through her helmet, I can tell that her hair is a wild, curling mess of light brown locks, so different from my dark, mostly straight hair. As she pops her helmet, more of her face is revealed, and she’s _pretty_ , with full lips and beautiful green eyes.

“Tell me you’re not archaeologists,” the Doctor practically begs after he comes to the realization that telling them to leave isn’t going to work. “I’m a time traveler, I point and _laugh_ at archaeologists.”

The woman laughs. “Ah. Professor River Song,” she shoots a wink at me over the Doctor’s shoulder. “Archeologist.”

I give her a ghost of a smile, but I must still look rather terrified, because she tilts her head at me in question.

The Doctor tries to get everyone to leave again, and my finger is itching for that button when River approaches me. “You don’t want to miss this adventure, sweetie,” she tells me, bending down slightly, her finger tap-tap- _tapping_ at the face of my vortex manipulator, almost as if she knows what it does, almost as if she’s met me before. She says, almost conspiratorially, “We’re only just getting started.”

“No,” says the Doctor, sounding steadily more irritated. “We’re _leaving._ Something came to this library and killed everything in it. Killed a whole world.”

_Yeah, that’s gonna be a no from me dawg._

I think about pressing the button, but then I remember the _pain_. Besides, things aren’t _that_ dangerous. Not _yet._

River scoffs. “That was a hundred years ago,” she says, wrapping an arm about my shoulders companionably, as though she might find an ally in me if not in the Doctor. “The Library’s been silent for a hundred years,” she continues, squeezing me comfortingly. “Whatever came here is _long_ dead.”

The Doctor eyes her arm with disapproval and I catch her rolling her eyes at the edge of my vision. I think I’m starting to like her, much like I’d immediately liked Donna. Anyone who isn’t afraid to sass the Doctor is alright in my book.

“Bet your life?” the Doctor asks.

“Always,” River returns with another wink, then leaves me to help one of the Daves (there are two, one of whom goes by Proper Dave, and the other, creatively, by Other Dave) seal the door.

While she does that, another woman, Miss Evangelista, tries to get us to sign a contract to say that our experience inside The Library constitutes the intellectual property of the Felman Lux Corporation. Considering Lux himself is too much of a fucking coward to try and get us to sign the contract, I refuse to take a copy on principle. The Doctor and Donna reluctantly accept them (if only to make Evangelista stop brandishing them at us as if we’ll die if we don’t sign them) and then promptly tear them up in Mr. Lux’s face.

Mr. Lux sputters. “My family built this Library,” he says. “I have rights!”

The Doctor ignores him. “Torch?” the Doctor asks, holding out his hand expectantly.

Reluctantly, Lux complies.

“Spooky, isn’t it?” the Doctor asks, shining the flashlight into the darkness. “Almost every species in the universe has an irrational fear of the dark.” He pauses, passes the flashlight to me, then claps his hands together, facing everyone once more. “Except, it’s not irrational. It’s Vashta Nerada.”

“Vashta Nerada?” Donna repeats.

For some reason that I can’t even begin to explain, the words cause a lightbulb to flicker on and off in my brain. Like I’ve heard of this “Vashta Nerada” before. But that’s impossible, because I can’t. I’ve never seen _Doctor Who_ , beyond the first episode, never come across the “Vashta Nerada” in a book, never so much as heard the words spoken before now.

“It’s what’s in the dark,” I say, as if on autopilot.

“It’s what’s always in the dark,” the Doctor finishes, looking at me. His expression is unreadable. “Lights!” he exclaims suddenly, turning away from me. “We need lights. You got lights?”

“Anita,” River says, rejoining us and pointing to the other woman, “unpack the lights.”

“In a circle!” the Doctor instructs. “Safe area, big as you can, lights pointing out.”

“You’re not seriously going to listen to this man,” Lux asks in apparent disbelief.

“Considering he’s the only person here who knows what’s going on, I would,” I return with a scowl.

River huffs a short laugh, putting her hand on my arm again. “Apparently, I am. Other Dave, make sure the door’s secure, then help Anita,” she orders. “Proper Dave, find an active terminal: I want access to the library database. See what you can find about what happened here a hundred years ago.” She pauses, pulling me forward to walk over to a desk, where she takes a battered-looking blue book from the depths of her backpack. The cover reminds me of the panels on the outside of the TARDIS, and I swear that the color is an exact match. “Pretty boy,” she says as she waves over at the Doctor to try and get his attention. “Step into my office.” When he finally comes over, she thanks him.

“For what?” the Doctor asks in confusion.

“The usual,” she says, her brows furrowing slightly. “Coming when I call.”

“That was you?” the Doctor asks.

River laughs. “You’re doing a very good job, acting like you don’t know me,” she says then turns to me, taking my hand kindly between both of hers. “How about you, sweetie?”

I stare at her, willing the same lightbulb of recognition to go off as before, but nothing happens. All I see when I look at her is a strong, confident woman who, for some reason, trusts us. Who, for some reason, is familiar with us. Who calls us “sweetie” and feels comfortable with casual intimacy. Whose warmth and familiarity calls into mind my mother.

“Okay then,” she mutters as she searches my eyes. She abruptly drops my hand and I feel cold for it. “Shall we do diaries, then?” she asks, flipping through the pages of her book. “Morgan’s hair’s still quite dark, so early days.” She peers at the Doctor from under her lashes and raises her brows at what she finds. _“Very_ early days,” she amends. “So, er, crash of the Byzantium. Have we done that yet?”

The Doctor and I exchange a glance. He raises a brow at me. I shake my head and raise a brow at him back. He shakes his head too.

“Obviously ringing no bells,” River says, looking between the two of us. There’s a peculiar expression on her face as she turns back to her “diary”, continuing to flip through the pages. “Right. Oh, picnic at Asgard yet?”

“Asgard?” I ask, making a face. “Like from _Thor_?”

She laughs.

I don’t laugh with her, casting another glance at the Doctor instead.

She coughs. “Alright, obviously not. Blimey, _very_ early days then. Whew, life of a time traveler. Never knew it could be such hard work.” She freezes in her tracks, stops the flipping, and then _looks_ , really _looks_ at us as we look at each other. Her hand comes up to cup the Doctor’s cheek and something shoots through me at the casualness of the touch. Something hot and bright and unnamable. “Look at you,” she whispers. “Oh, you’re _young.”_

“I’m really not, you know,” the Doctor says, glancing at her fingers.

She doesn’t take the hint. “No, but you are.” She traces his cheekbone with her thumb, then withdraws, picking at my long hair this time. She brings it up to her face for inspection, rubbing the strands between her fingers. “You’re younger than I’ve ever seen you,” she says, and her voice is full of wonder. Of wonder and of heartbreak.

_But how can I have broken her heart when I’ve never met her?_

_Unless—_

_Wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey._

She’s from our future.

“Doctor, Morgan,” she begins pleadingly. “Please tell me you know who I am?”

I bite my lip, loath to tell her that, in fact, I’ve never met her before in my life, but the Doctor has no such qualms. “Who are you?” he asks, and I can see the moment her heart shatters.

* * *

Miss Evangelista and Proper Dave end up skeletons in their space suits. The Doctor tries to teleport Donna out of the Library, but something goes wrong and we end up hearing “Donna Noble has been saved,” though what that means is beyond any of us.

All in all, things aren’t going so well, and I have no idea how to help them go any better. The Doctor, for his part, is furious about what happened with Donna, vowing to get her back. It’s all I can do to keep up with all the running, though I don’t have much of a choice—the Doctor clings to me like a lifeline, holding my hand tightly, his panic and fear so palpable that I can nearly _taste_ them. I’m not sure if he holds my hand for my sake, or for his, but I’m grateful for the allowance all the same. River is a little more confident, but I can tell that the Library is getting to her too; she should have listened when the Doctor first told her to leave. But she doesn’t need any such hand holding from him. She’s strong enough, independent enough, clever enough without it.

She’s an archeologist who seems to have experience with these sorts of dangers, and I’m…I’m just a philosophy student. I’d never even managed to get my doctorate, pulled into this world before I had my PhD firmly in my grasp. What am I even _doing_ here? I don’t belong here.

My finger hovers over the button once more, again, I’m disrupted by River.

“I know it’s tough,” she says quietly as she comes up to me, “but stick around as long as you can.”

_As long as I can?_

I’m still puzzling over what she’s said when she turns to the Doctor. “Use the red settings,” she advises him as he scans at the shadows.

“It doesn’t have a red setting,” the Doctor says impatiently.

“Well, use the dampers,” she tells him.

“It doesn’t _have_ dampers.” I can tell he’s getting steadily more irritated, and in return, I place a hand on his arm.

“It will do one day,” she says, in that all-knowing, cat-that-ate-the-canary way of hers.

The Doctor takes the sonic screwdriver she’d showed off earlier and examines it closely. “So, some day in the future I just—what— _give you_ my sonic screwdriver?”

“Yeah,” River replies easily.

“Why would I do _that?”_ the Doctor asks, sounding positively aghast.

“Well,” says River sardonically, “I didn’t pluck it from your cold, dead hands, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

_Though, considering her aim with that squareness gun, it wouldn’t shock me if she had._

“Listen to me,” River begins, laying her hand over his and taking back the screwdriver gently. “You’re angry. I understand that. But you need to be less emotional right now. There are six people in this room still alive. Focus on that.” Then, she mutters, almost as an afterthought, “Dear _God_ , you’re hard work young.”

 _“Young?”_ the Doctor splutters.

“That’s the second time you’ve said that,” I say, narrowing my eyes at her. “Are you really—?”

She puts a finger to my lips and winks. “Spoilers.”

She focuses back on the Doctor, and I can’t tell if I’m annoyed at how easily she dismissed me, or just how quickly her attention is drawn to the man beside me instead.

“Doctor,” she begins softly, patiently, “one day, I’m going to be someone that you trust completely, but I can’t wait for you to find that out.” She glances at me once more and her expression drops, lips curling down. “And I’m really, truly sorry,” she says, and then she whispers something in the Doctor’s ear. When she pulls back, she apologizes to me again before asking the Doctor if the two of them are okay.

He looks completely stunned, and worse still, _thunderous_ , but all he does is nod mutely.

“What did she—”

“Not here,” he says. And then launches into a lengthy explanation about his screwdriver, wherein we find that Donna is still probably alive. Anita’s shadow gets infected by the Vashta Nerada and, in a flash of brilliance, the Doctor has Anita put her helmet back on. He darkens the visor to try and trick the Vashta Nerada into thinking that they’ve already infested the suit. After that, the Doctor tries to talk to Proper Dave, aka the Vashta Nerada now inhabiting his suit. He insists that I follow River instead of staying with him, which is certainly odd; earlier he’d seemed almost loath to let her near me, let alone to leave me with her, instead preferring to drag me about by the hand, but now he’s trusting her with my life.

_What did she say to him? Something only the Doctor would know._

_Oh, the Doctor._ I don’t want to be worried about him, but I am. I can’t help it. He’s the only one who seems to know how to get out of here, the only one who ever seems to know what’s going on. And I’m worried that he’s going to get himself killed if he’s not in my line of sight for just one minute. It’s an odd thing, being worried about someone you barely know. I can hardly explain why it’s getting to me so much, but it _is_. At least if I could see him, then I could verify that he’s alright.

River must notice my distraction, for she shoots me a reassuring smile and comments to me quietly as she scans the shadows with her own sonic screwdriver. “It’s funny,” she says, “but I keep wishing the Doctor were here.”

“He is,” Anita and I say at the same time.

“No,” River shakes her head with a soft smile. “You know like when you see a photograph of someone you know, but it’s from years before you knew them? It’s like they’re not quite finished. They’re not done yet. Well,” she sighs, “the Doctor is here. _Morgan_ is here. But they’re not my Doctor, not my Morgan. My Doctor— _my_ Doctor,” she says, a faraway look in her eyes. “I’ve seen whole armies turn and run away. And he’d just swagger off back to his TARDIS and open the doors with a snap of his fingers.” She looks—she looks almost _lovesick_ , and that something deep inside me pangs once more. “The Doctor and his TARDIS,” she says dreamily. “Next stop, everywhere.”

“And me?” I ask before I can help myself, and her gaze turns on me, almost apologetic all over again, though why—for what reason—I don’t know. “What about m—”

“Spoilers. No one can open the TARDIS by snapping their fingers,” the Doctor scoffs as he rejoins us. “It doesn’t work like that.”

“It does for the Doctor,” River counters.

“I _am_ the Doctor.”

“Yeah, some day.”

“Doctor,” asks Anita. “When we first met, you didn’t trust Professor Song. And then she whispered a word in your ear, and you did. My life so far…I could use a word like that. What did she say? Give a dead girl a break. Your secrets are safe with me.”

“‘Safe,’” the Doctor repeats, and I can tell that his mind is racing, can see it in the expression on his face, in the way his eyes dart back and forth between me and Anita and River. “‘Safe,’” he repeats. “Nobody says ‘saved’. _Nutters_ say ‘saved’. You say ‘safe.’ It did mean ‘safe’, it meant—it literally meant saved!”

“Like on a computer?” I ask, trying to follow his logic.

“Yes, Morgan, you brilliant, brilliant girl!” he says, kissing me on the mouth, then runs over to the computer. “See, there it is, right here. A hundred years ago, massive power surge,” he explains. “All the teleports going at once. Soon as the Vashta Nerada hit their hatching cycle, they attack. Someone hits the alarm. The computer tries to teleport them out, but—”

“It tried to teleport four thousand twenty-two people?” River asks incredulously.

“And it saved them! The computer saved them!” I say in realization. The Doctor grins at me encouragingly. “Nowhere was safe in the whole Library, so they’re stuck in the system, waiting to be sent like an email.”

“The Library, a whole world of books, and right at the core, biggest hard-drive in history,” the Doctor continues. “The index to everything ever written with backup copies of every single book, and the computer saved four thousand twenty-two people the only way a computer can. It saved them to the hard drive.”

Just as he’s gesturing towards the computer, the screen goes blank.

 ** _All Library systems are permanently offline. Sorry for any inconvenience,_** reads the message.

“We need to save Cal,” Lux says. “Have to get to the main computer. C’mon, I’ll show you.”

As it turns out, by ‘Cal’, he means his aunt, a child who was dying. Instead of just letting her die, they implanted her mind into the computer so that she could live some semblance of a life. He hadn’t been trying to protect his patent by trying to get us to sign those papers earlier; he’d been trying to keep us from disclosing the secret that is Cal.

“She saved everyone in the Library,” the Doctor breathes. “Folded them into her dreams and kept them safe.”

“Why didn’t she say something?” asks Anita sensibly.

“Because she’d forgotten. She’s got over four thousand living minds chatting away inside her head,” the Doctor says.

 ** _AUTO-DESTRUCT IN TEN MINUTES!_** the computer blares.

“What do we do, then?” asks River, looking to the Doctor to respond.

“Easy!” he proclaims. “We beam all the people out of the data core. The computer resets and stops the countdown.” Then he frowns. “Difficult: Cal doesn’t have enough memory space left to make the transfer.” He brightens again. “Easy!” he says, then catches sight of me, and his expression falls once more, smile fading. “I’ll hook myself up to the computer,” he says slowly, “so that she can borrow my memory space.” He reaches out and takes my hand.

 _“Difficult,”_ River interjects. “It’ll kill you stone dead.”

I squeeze his hand harder. This is not how he ends. I know. I saw him die. This can’t be how it happens. He squeezes back, shooting me a small, secretive smile. “It’s easy to criticize,” he says to River, as though it’s still a great plan.

“There’s got to be another way,” I say quietly.

River shakes her head. “It’ll burn out both your hearts, and you won’t regenerate.”

But he _has to_. I _saw him_ do as much. But I can’t say that, not right now. Because that’s the future, and if there’s one thing I learned from reading science fiction, it’s that you can’t disclose someone’s future to them. It’s why River keeps that diary, it’s why I never mentioned Amelia and Prisoner Zero to this Doctor, it’s why the Doctor can’t die today.

So I exchange a glance with River, begging her with my eyes for something, anything, some kind of lifeline. She gives me the slightest of nods: she has a plan.

As it turns out, Anita has been dead for a while now, though the Vashta Nerada look up the Doctor in their books and deem him enough of a threat to give him one day to fix this whole mess before they start feeding on everything and anything dumb enough to enter this library.

Lux leaves to go prime data cells for maximum download, and although the Doctor instructs her to follow, River doesn’t. “Lux can manage without me,” she says. “You can’t.”

The Doctor nods once, eyeing her speculatively, and takes me to a slightly more secluded area. I can still see River behind him from our position, but there’s no way for him to see her.

She nods at me once in return and starts to creep forward slowly, step by step.

The Doctor, meanwhile, has his sad eyes fixed wholly and solely on me. “I know,” he begins softly, “I know that it’s early for you. But you—you’re—” He takes a breath and leans down to press his forehead against mine. I try to hold his eyes, his warm brown eyes that have been so welcoming of me, so understanding even when I’ve been nothing but rude and confused towards him. “You’re _everything,”_ he says, reaching up to brush a strand of hair away from my face. _“My everything,”_ he repeats, closing his eyes, and I follow suit. He takes a shaky inhale. I feel his breath washing over my face, my lips. His fingers linger on my cheek, and then he’s angling my face towards his.

_Everything._

His mouth brushes softly against mine and then—

“Thanks for distracting him, sweetie,” says River, and then she knocks him out.

For a few seconds, I just stare at her, unable to believe that this has just happened, that she’d just punched him hard enough to knock him out, _that he’d nearly kissed me_ , but River literally snaps in my face, drawing my focus back to her. “Stay with me a few more minutes, sweetie,” she says, and begins roughly dragging the Doctor over to some copper piping where she can more easily tie him up. “Handcuffs in his left pocket, love,” she tells me, patting me on the cheek gently before heading over to the machine and starting to twist some wires together.

“How do you—?”

“Spoilers.” I hesitantly reach into the Doctor’s pocket, surprised to find that they are really quite unassumingly deep. After floundering around in them for a few seconds, I finally manage to latch onto something distinctly metallic. I withdraw a set of handcuffs and set to work chaining up the Doctor. I’m careful to get both hands, as per River’s instruction, so that he won’t just be able to sonic them off.

“River,” I say, once that’s done. “What are you going to do?”

She gives me a small smile. “Even this young, you’re worried about me.”

I furrow my brow. “Of course I am,” I breathe. “You’ve been—”

 _Kind, wonderful, clever. Funny. My_ friend.

“No, I don’t want to hear it,” she says, and there are tears in her eyes. “You’ll make me ruin my makeup.”

My heart squeezes in my chest because I already know the answer. “You didn’t answer the question though,” I point out weakly.

“The same thing the Doctor was going to do,” she finally says after a long moment.

So she’ll die? Isn’t that, like, not allowed? She’s clearly had so many adventures with us, with me and the Doctor both, and just like that…just like _this_ she’ll be gone. Just as we’re meeting her for the first time, it’ll be her last. There’s something so cosmically unfair about all of this that I start to laugh. I laugh until I cry, and then I keep crying.

River just smiles at me sadly.

“I can’t let you do this,” I tell her once I’ve calmed down slightly. “I’ll—I’ll fight you.”

She laughs. “No you won’t,” she says, her eyes sparkling fondly.

“River, you can—”

“Do I have to handcuff you, too?” she asks, all sly sadness.

I raise my eyebrows. “So you carry around handcuffs as well?”

“Spoilers.” She winks at me.

The Doctor chooses this moment to wake up. “Oh, no, no, no, no! Come on, what are you doing? That’s my job!”

“Oh, and I’m not allowed to have a career, I suppose?” River jokes, her lips twisting into a facsimile of a smile.

“This is not a joke!” the Doctor hisses, and he’s _mad._ “Stop this, now! This is going to kill you! I’d have a chance. You don’t have any!”

River scoffs. “You wouldn’t, and neither do I. I’m timing it for the end of the countdown. There’ll be a blip in the command flow, that way it should improve our chances of a clean download.”

“River,” the Doctor begs. _“Please.”_

“Funny thing is,” she continues as though he hasn’t said anything, “this means you two have always known how I was going to die. All the time we’ve been together and you both knew I was coming here. The last time I saw you, the future you, I mean, you turned up on my doorstep with a new haircut and a suit. You took me to Darillium to see the Singing Towers, and what a night that was. The Towers sang and you cried.”

“Morgan, let me go,” the Doctor turns to me next. “Let me go. I know you have the key.”

And there are silent tears dripping down my cheeks, unbidden. “I—I can’t,” I whisper, like I’ve lost my voice.

“There’s a good girl,” River says fondly. “You can’t die here. It’ll mean I never met you.”

“Time can be rewritten,” the Doctor says.

“Not those times,” River says sadly. “Not one line. Don’t you dare. It’s okay. It’s not over for you two. You’ll see me again. You’ve got all that to come. You, me, and Morgan. Time and space. You watch us run.”

“River,” the Doctor says pleadingly. “You know my name. You whispered it in my ear.”

“So I did,” she says, and for some reason looks right at me, as though this is significant. “I’m sorry,” she apologizes again.

“There’s only one reason I would ever tell anyone my name. There’s only one time I could—and Morgan—”

“Hush now, sweetie,” she says. “Spoilers.” And with that, she joins together the two power cables she’s been holding.

The light is so blinding I have to look away. I wish I didn’t; it only seems fair that if she’s going to die for all of us, at least one of us could witness the moment of her death, at least one of us could look on in farewell. I strain and strain, eyes squinting at the brightness, but it’s too much.

And I have to look away.

* * *

Lux finds us there some time later. I’m staring at where River had been, tears still trailing down my cheeks, and the Doctor is still chained to his copper pipe. None of us say anything. When Lux clears his throat, I wipe the tears from my face and pull the key from my pocket to undo the handcuffs. My hands are shaking so badly that it takes a few tries to get his right hand free, and when it finally is, the Doctor carefully extracts the key from my hand so that he can undo his left.

When he’s done, he puts a gentle hand on my back, and we go to find Donna. When we meet up with her, she tells us about the dream she was having, with two kids and a man named Lee. The Doctor picks up the diary and the sonic screwdriver River had been carrying, and we start making our way back to the TARDIS, the Doctor’s arm firm around my waist.

“Are you alright?” Donna finally asks me and the Doctor.

I open my mouth, but no words come out.

“We’re always alright,” the Doctor answers for us both.

“Is that special Time Lord code for not really alright at all? Because I’m alright too,” Donna says with a weak smile.

“C’mon,” the Doctor says with a small smile of his own, leading us inside the TARDIS. But something is still bothering him. “My screwdriver,” he says. “Why, why would I give this to her? Thing is, future me had _years_ to think about it, all those years to think of a way to save her, and what he did was give her a screwdriver. Why?”

He holds the screwdriver up for our inspection and for some reason I blurt out, “Neural relay!”

He looks between me and the screwdriver in bewilderment and then kisses me hard. “Morgan, you genius! Oh I am good, I am _very_ good!”

“What have you done?” asks Donna.

“Saved her.”

And with that, the Doctor sprints away.

He later explains to us, as we eat dinner, that he’d been able to transfer River’s consciousness into the computer, and now she’ll be able to live her life the same way Cal does, with every book ever at her disposal and Cal for company.

I cry when I hear this, but by the time we’re ready to part our separate ways for the night, my fingers are itching, an old itch that I thought I had rid myself of long ago. I wander the hallways that had confused me earlier today with a mission in mind, and as I weave in and out of corridors, I don’t stop until I hit the door that—for some reason— _I know_ will lead me to a piano. I don’t know how I know, I can’t explain it, haven’t been able to explain a lot of things today, but for now I’m not worried about it. For now, I have a goal.

I play because my heart hurts and I can’t say why. I didn’t know her, had never met her, and yet…and yet this feels right. Everyone deserves a proper send off. Although she’d alluded to a lifetime of familiarity with me, I had only known her for but a few short hours, and so perhaps I cannot mourn her now, not truly, not while I stand on the very precipice of acquaintanceship. But something tells me that one day, I’ll feel the true pain of her death; one day I’ll have to let her go, knowing that when she next sees me, it’ll be as a stranger, sharing none of her inside jokes, none of her easy warmth. Knowing that she’ll be on her way to her death.

And I’ll be on the lookout for that day. The day the Doctor and I take her to Darillium to see the Singing Towers.

“Chopin’s first nocturne,” the Doctor comments quietly, and I jump slightly at the bench, my fingers faltering over the keys for a few seconds as my concentration breaks. “It’s said that he hated it so much, it was only published after his death.”

I frown. “He didn’t hate it, he just didn’t think it was his best work,” I say as I bring the piece to a soft close, hands landing naturally on the keys as I move into another piece. As I begin the opening notes of Liszt’s “Consolation No. 3”, I can practically feel him opening his mouth to say something, like we’re marionettes connected on a string, an instinct I’ve never taken notice of until now. “Before you say anything,” I interrupt him, determination a mask on my face as I try to keep the pace of the piece relaxed. I’ve never been anxious about performing in front of others; I’d played in competitions and, for a while, I’d even considered studying at a conservatory. And yet— “I know we didn’t know her.”

The Doctor sighs. “We’d barely even met her.” Faintly, I hear his approaching footsteps. “We’d barely even said ‘hello.’” He comes to a stop right beside me. “And you’re playing the song Liszt wrote when his best friend died.”

“Not yet,” I say in reply, my fingers growing stiff. It’s been a while since I’ve played for longer than fifteen minutes at a time, and while this song is still in my repertoire, still engrained in my every neuron, the finger placement in my bones, my body just isn’t used to this anymore. “But she knew.”

He sighs. “It means nothing, Morgan.”

I slam down on the keys harder than I had intended, and just like that, the spell I’d been casting is broken. “Maybe,” I concede, turning completely to face him, “but she still _knew.”_

His expression drops. “What do you want me to say?” he asks, and there’s an odd sort of hurt to his voice. “She’s not _you_. And you’re not—” he pauses, but I can almost hear the _“in love with me, not yet.”_ He takes a deep breath. “So, why does it even matter?”

“So just because I’m ‘young’, I’m not allowed to feel anything? Not even when you _told her your real name_?”

His hands tighten at his side, and for just one second, he allows himself to feel pain. To feel sadness. I can see it in the way his chin drops and his jaw slackens. “You know that’s not what I mean,” he says, eyes glassy. “I just—we have to move on. Maybe one day we’ll meet her, Professor River Song, but not today. For me, this is a blink of the eye, Morgan.” He cautiously reaches for my hand, and for once I let him. For once, I don’t think about the consequences, about my determination to not fall in love with him. I don’t think about anything except for how warm he is, how comforting and sure. “When you’ve lived as long as I have…well, this, too, shall pass.”

He’s right. But just because I know that he is, just because I’m all too aware that our time is a brief, fragile thing, just because I know she’d been ready—willing—to die, doesn’t mean—

_Fuck._

“Is this what traveling with you turns me into? Someone who can get over death just like that?” I bite my lip. “I can’t—I haven’t—” I break away from him, from the piano, rising to my feet and bringing the same hand he’d touched to my chest. “She was funny, and kind, and it _hurts_. And I know it’s going to hurt even more later when we do know her.”

Warm brown eyes soften, and he crosses the space between us easily. “I know it does,” he says, and I don’t say anything in return. I just hug him back.


End file.
